Nightshade on Elm Street: A Flower Shop Mystery (22 page)

“I don’t know. I fell asleep around midnight, and she wasn’t there this morning when I got up, so I figured she got up early, had breakfast, and went straight to Beached.”

“Would she have worn the same outfit two days in a row?” I asked.

Jake shrugged his shoulders, a miserable look on his face. “Lily did what Lily wanted to do.”

The sliding door opened and Halston peered inside. “Jake, two detectives are here to see you.”

Jake stared at him as though the statement hadn’t made sense. “Right now?”

“They’re waiting by the pool.”

Jake rubbed his hands on his shorts, as though drying his palms, then got up, but seemed hesitant to move. “Can they question me?”

“They can,” Marco said. “That doesn’t mean you have to answer them. You can tell them you want a lawyer present or you can see what kind of questions they’re asking first and take it from there.”

“Are you saying I’ll need a lawyer?”

“Yes,” I said.

“It would be a good precaution,” Marco replied. “That’s all.”

Jake studied us for a second, then followed Halston outside, sliding the door shut behind him.

“He shouldn’t be talking to the cops at all,” I said. “The husband is always the first to be suspected.”

“It’s out of our hands, Sunshine. Besides, Jake won’t need a lawyer unless the cops find evidence of foul play. As of this moment, all we know is that Lily drowned.”

“Wearing her clothes, don’t forget.”

“Did you ever walk along the sand in your clothes?” Marco countered. “Or sit on the dock with your bare feet dangling in the water? Or go for a boat ride?”

“Are you saying she fell in accidentally?”

“I’m saying we were hired to find Melissa, not investigate Lily’s death.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ve been hanging around you too long, Salvare. I see mysteries everywhere I look.”

Marco pulled me onto his lap. “So what do you see now?”

I put my hands on either side of his face and pretended to study him. “I see a potential suspect.”

Marco laid me back onto the sofa and leaned over me. “What am I suspected of?”

“Kissing your redheaded fiancée slash assistant.”

Giving me that devilish flicker of a grin, he proved me right.

“Ugh. Get a room,” Jillian said, flopping down on one end of the sofa.

Marco and I sat up as Jillian propped her feet on the coffee table and sighed. “I’m so hungry I’m sick to my stomach.”

“I thought Claymore was making you an egg sandwich,” I said.

“He’s just now peeling the hard-boiled eggs.”

“You mean you’re waiting on an egg
salad
sandwich? Why didn’t you just have fried eggs on bread?”

“Do not mention the word”—she used her fingers to make air quotes—“
fried
ever again. You know my fragile stomach can’t handle grease. Now, do you mind?” She made a shooing motion. “I really need to lie down.”

Taking my hand, Marco pulled me up. “Come on, Sunshine. We’re done here.”

“Abs,” Jillian said, stretching out her arm, “here’s your purse. You left your cell phone in it and the phone’s been beeping.”

I pulled out my phone and checked the screen. “It’s Bloomers,” I told Marco. “I’d better see what’s going on.” Especially with Marco’s mom being at the shop.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I’m getting a glass of water from the kitchen. Want some?”

“No, thanks.” I dialed the shop, then walked up the hallway toward the front of the cottage as I waited for someone to pick up. Finally, I heard Grace say, “Bloomers Flower Shop. How may I help you?”

“Hi, Grace. It’s me. Is everything okay?”

“Lovely, dear.”

I stopped at the doorway to the redecorated living room but couldn’t bring myself to go inside. With a shudder, I turned away. “Okay. I just noticed I missed your call, so I thought I’d better check in.”

“It wasn’t my call, love. Hold on a moment.”

Please don’t let it be Francesca’s call.
I wasn’t in the mood to be hounded about the shower.

I heard Grace cover the phone to say, “Maureen, did you ring up Abby?”

My mom was there, too?

“Your mum would like a word,” Grace said.

“Abigail, it didn’t work,” Mom said, “and I don’t know what to try next.”

“What didn’t work?”

“Putting my elm tree display outside. The wind kept blowing masks into the street, and when we moved it farther back, people just stepped around it to get inside. Do you have any ideas?”

I had a few, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to
hear them. “How about”—I couldn’t believe I was about to say this—“the bay window?”

“I thought of that, but the sun is so hot, I’m afraid it will melt the tree.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to move it back to where it was, Mom. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Okay,” she said in a disappointed voice. “Thank you, honey.”

“You’re welcome. Can I talk to Grace again?”

A second later, Grace came back on the line. “Yes, love?”

“How is everything else going?”

“The parlor is humming along quite nicely, Lottie is busy in the workroom, and Francesca is taking care of the customers in the shop.”

I dropped my voice to ask, “How is
that
going?”

“Splendidly, dear. Francesca gives everyone who comes in a small plate of Italian hors d’oeuvres, and you’ll be pleased to know they’ve become quite a hit. We’ve had a steady stream of people since we opened, the cash register has been ringing like mad, and Francesca is having a delightful time. I have to say, Abby, Marco’s mum is a fine complement to our shop.”

“Well,” I said, forcing a cheerful tone, “that’s terrific, Grace.” A complement to our bottom line, maybe, but not so much to my self-esteem.

“Did you want to speak with her, love?”

“No! I mean, it’s not necessary—unless Francesca needs to speak with me.”

Grace murmured something I couldn’t hear, then said, “She sends her love, dear, and says to take good care of her boy.”

I ended the call with a scowl. Did Francesca really need to remind me to take care of Marco? And handing out hors d’oeuvres at a flower shop? Really?

“Everything okay at Bloomers?” Marco asked, walking toward me.

“Everything is splendid, according to Grace.”

“Then why don’t you look happy about it?”

“What’s not to be happy about? Your mom is wowing my customers with free appetizers, and the cash register is ringing like mad.”

“
Mad
and
splendid
are Grace words, and that tells me there’s trouble in paradise. What did my mom do?”

“Nothing, Marco. In fact, according to Grace, your mom is a complement to the shop.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“Now I get it.”

“What do you get?”

He put his arm around me. “That it’s time to return you to Bloomers to claim your territory.”

We were on the same page. What a relief. I leaned in to him as we passed through the kitchen on our way to the back deck to say our good-byes. What had I done before Marco came into my life?

Got engaged to Pryce, for one thing.

Claymore was humming softly as he chopped eggs, while Jillian stretched out on the sofa in the next room with her eyes closed, a contented smile on her face. It struck me then how perfectly suited to each other they were and how happy they were together. If they could be that satisfied with married life, then Marco and I should have it made.

I put my arm around Marco’s waist, letting his energy and love flow into me, easing my frustration. Why was I angry anyway? Francesca was drawing customers into Bloomers. And thanks to her love of cooking, we were making money. Surely it wasn’t jealousy. Surely I wasn’t that petty.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Marco murmured in my ear.

I stuffed my frustrations back inside to work on later. “I was just thinking how suited Jillian and Claymore are. Let’s go say good-bye and get out of here.”

When we stepped outside onto the deck, I was surprised to see that Jake had returned from meeting with the detectives. He was sitting at a table with Halston, working the keypad of his cell phone, while Melissa stood at the railing observing the happenings below, an odd, Cheshire-cat grin on her face. Orabell sipped her drink and studied Melissa from the wicker settee. Halston had his eye on the activity on the beach, too, but with an intense frown marring his normally jovial countenance.

Hearing the sliding door close, Melissa turned, her expression changing instantly to one of concern. “The detectives came back for Pryce a few minutes ago,” she said, her hands clasped tightly together as she walked toward us. “What do you think that means?”

“That he wasn’t listening when I told him not to talk to the police without his lawyer,” Marco said, walking over to the railing for a look. I followed and so did Melissa, Orabell, and Halston. Jake seemed oblivious.

“How did it go, Jake?” Marco asked.

Jake shrugged. “Just routine questions, like you said. Luckily I have a solid alibi.”

“Which is what?” I asked.

“I was here all night. Pryce can vouch for me.”

He certainly had that all worked out. Almost. “Pryce’s bedroom is at the end of the hallway,” I said. “And—”

“Abby, come look,” Marco said, and ushered me over to the railing, saying quietly, “Leave that to the detectives, okay? It isn’t our case.”

“Sorry. I told you I’ve been hanging around you too much,” I whispered back.

Down below, the beach had practically emptied out. The news vans, the emergency vehicles, and all but two police cars, one unmarked—except for the half dozen antennae waving from the trunk—had departed. Two uniformed officers stood guard over a wide area marked off by yellow crime-scene tape, while curious neighbors looked on from a distance.

The yellow tape closed off half the shoreline in front of the Osborne cottage, along with their pier and the boat moored there. Pryce and the two detectives stood on the pier talking, and I could tell by the way Pryce held himself that he was agitated. I glanced at Melissa and saw that her sly grin had returned, as though she was enjoying what was happening to her ex-fiancé.

“Doesn’t look good for Pryce,” Orabell remarked. She clucked her tongue to suggest that she thought it was a pity, but her expression didn’t register that same emotion.

“He’s going to need a stiff drink when he comes back,” Halston said.

“Unless they arrest him first,” Orabell said.

“Why would they arrest Pryce?” Melissa asked.

“Why do you think?” Orabell snapped. “
Someone
pushed that woman into the lake.”

Jake’s head bobbed up again. “How do you know Lily was pushed?”

“I didn’t say I knew,” Orabell answered.

“Yes, you did,” Melissa retorted. “How do we know it wasn’t you who pushed her?”

“Me?” Orabell tipped back her head and brayed out a laugh. “Did you hear that, Halston? Here’s a pot calling a kettle black. How do we know it wasn’t
you
, Miss Priss? We all know how jealous you were of Lily, and then you conveniently disappeared, only to reappear after the body was found.”

“There’s your likely culprit,” Halston said, pointing at
Jake, his jaw locked tighter than usual. “Think he’d be a bit soggy around the eyeballs from losing his wife instead of busy playing with his techno-toy.”

“You want to take me on, old man?” Jake called, hands braced on the wooden chair arms as though he was ready to spring up.

A parrot lady, a vindictive ex-girlfriend, a gym jock, a lock-jawed neighbor, a high-strung brother, and Jillian. These were the people Pryce chose to spend August weekends with?

Marco linked his hand through my arm and led me toward the door. “Time to get away from the craziness here.”

Right. And back to the craziness at Bloomers.

I had Marco drop me at the corner so he could park his car; then I headed up the sidewalk, slowing when I saw half a dozen men standing outside Bloomers, peering through the big bay windows, hands cupped around their eyes.

“Did something happen?” I asked one of the men, recognizing him as the husband of one of our best customers.

He glanced around at me, then immediately turned red in the face and began to stammer. “N-no…we were just admiring your…flowers.”

“You’re welcome to come inside and browse,” I said, opening the yellow door.

“We’ve already been inside,” one of the men said with a sheepish grin.

“We were just enjoying the…scenery,” another one said.

Several more men came out of Bloomers carrying small white paper sacks. “We’ll be back tomorrow, Francesca,” one of them called over his shoulder.

Francesca?

“Bene,”
I heard Marco’s mom call. “I will see you then, Carlo.”

“Carlo,” the man said to his friends with a proud smile. “That’s Charlie in Italian.”

I let them pass, then stepped inside and stopped in surprise. Make that shock.

Customers, most of them male, filled the shop, all of them holding small paper plates loaded with food. Francesca was moving among them carrying a platter of bite-sized appetizers, flirting and laughing and having a great time; Lottie was at the cash counter ringing up purchases; and Grace was in the parlor weaving among the tables, refilling cups of coffee and tea.

For a full minute, I simply stood there, feeling like a foreigner in my own country, an alien life-form dropped in from a different dimension. Or maybe I was in the thick of my worst nightmare, because it certainly appeared as though Marco’s mom was taking control of Bloomers—and Grace and Lottie were helping her. The only reminder of the peaceful flower shop I’d left behind that morning was Mom’s elm tree on the table in the middle of the room, its branches still covered with sleep masks.

“Bella!”
Francesca called above the melee. “Look how busy we are.
Fantastico
, no?” She paused to let a man take food from the platter. “Eat, eat! There is more where this came from.”

Moving in a daze, I darted between people, aiming for the purple curtain and the sanctity of my small slice of paradise behind it. I lifted one side of the curtain and stepped through, ready to inhale the soothing scents of my blossoms and exhale the chaos behind me. And there I stopped, as the second shock wave hit me.